Manu Chao’s song Bongo Bong was everywhere around the turn of the century. Its distinctive ping and cod reggae rhythm is irresistible – at least at first.

By the summer of 2000 when it was leaking out of every window it was becoming mildly irritating, especially its multi-lingual cod rapping by Manu Chao.

He was a former busker who had started out playing in groups that mixed punk with reggae and just about any other musical style he felt like playing.

Raised in Paris as the son of a Basque mother and Galician father who fled Franco’s Spain, he sang in English, French, Spanish, Italian, Catalan, Galician, Portuguese, Greek and Arabic – often all in the same song.

Chao started performing in the subways of Paris in groups called Hot Pants and Los Carayos before founding the Clash-influenced outfit Mano Negra – a hybrid of punk and rockabilly – in 1987 with his brother Antoine Chao.

He went solo when they broke up in 1995, moving to Madrid and founding the band Radio Bemba Sound System and playing in odd venues like trains and the hold of a ship in port cities in South America.

His breakthrough came with the 1998 album Clandestino, which spawned the viral hit Bongo Bong and, after a slow start, went on to sell five million copies. 

The single’s title and lyrics are taken from the 1939 jazz song King of Bongo Bong by black American trumpeter Roy Eldridge and incorporates the background music from Black Uhuru’s  Bull Ina Di Pen.

On the album it forms part of a medley with a song called Je Ne T’Aime Plus.